Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-06-10
INSTINCT AND HABIT.
A THEORY DIFFERENT FROM THAT
OF FORMER INVESTIGATORS.

Young Animals Have No Instinct of Fear
at Birth-The Law of transformers.
Peculiarities Noticeable in Boys-The
Plastic Period.
Henry James, in an article in Scribner's
Magazine on "Instinct,n shows that he has
given close study to this faculty in its various
forms as it appears in man and beast After
defining the word for the purpose of his dis
cussion and showing that the faculty is pres
emit in all living beings, he arrives at a con-
cluslon different from the older writers on
the subject, who smothered everything in a
vague wonder at the clairvoyant and pro-
phetic power of the animals-so superior to
anything in man-and at the benefcence of
God in endowing them with such gift. He
concludes that every instinct is an impulse,
and that man has a greater variety of i'm
pulses than cny ,o--er animal and ssey one of
these impulses is as ''blind" as the lowest in
stinct can be; but owing to mans memory,
power of reflection and power of inference
e they come each one to be felt by him in con-
nection with a foresight Of their results. 1t
is obvious that every instinct in an animal
with memory must be accompanied with
foresight as to its end, just as far as that end
zance. Thus it is plain that no matter how
well endowed an animal may originally be in
the matter of instinct, his actions will be
much modified if, in addition to impulses, he
have memories, associations and differences
eli Cir ssfiy considerable scale.
YOUNG ANNALS.
"Young animals" says the writer, Gimme
diately after birth have no instinct of fear,
hut fboi,, A.,
selves to be freely handled. Later, however,
they grow wild and, if left to themselves,
will not LET man approach them I am told
by farmers in the Adirondack wilderness that
it is a very serious matter if a COW wanders
off and calves in the woods and is not found
for week or more. The calf by that time is
as wild and almost as fleet as deer and hard
to capture without violence But calves
rarely show any particular wildness to the
men who have been in contact with them
during the first days of their life, when the
instinct to attach themselves is uppermost,
nor do they dread strangers as they would if
they were brought up wild"
This leads to the law of transformers,
which is this: that many instincts ripen at
certain age and then fade away No doubt
such law is restricted. Some instincts are
far less transient than others-those connected
with feeding and "self preservation" may
hardly be transient at all, and some, after
fading out for time, recur as strong as ever
-e. g., the instincts of pairing and rearing
young The author cites as an example of
the habit of acting on instinct a Scotch ter
rler, born on the floor of stable and trans
ferred six weeks later to carpeted house.
When he was months old he would make
very elaborate pretense of burying things,
crlo of oh l,o boJ
till he was tired. He scratched the carpet
with his fore feet, dropped the object from
his mouth upon the spot and then scratched
all about it with both fore and hind feet, if
remember rightly and finally went away
and let it lie. OF course, the act was en-
tirely useless. saw him perform it at that
age, some four or five times, and never again
in his life. The conditions were not present
to fix a habit which could last when the
prompting instinct died away. But suppose
meat instead of a glove, earth instead OF a
carpet, hunger pangs instead of a fresh SUD-
per few hours later, and it is easy to see
how this dog might have got into habit of
burying superf1uous food, which might have
lasted all his life
HUMAN BEINGS.
This popularity is still more noticeable in
human beings. If a boy grows up alone at
the age of games and sports, and learns
neither to play ball, nor row, nor sail, nor
ride, nor skate, nor fish, nor shoot, probably
he will be sedentary to the end of his days;
and, though the best of opportunities be
afforded him for learning these things later,
it is a hundred to one but he will pass them
by and shrink back from the effort of taking
those necessary first steps the prospect of
which at an earlier age would have filled
him with eager delight. The sexual passion
expires after a protracted reign; but it is
well known that its peculiar manifestations
in given individual depend almost entirely
on the habits he may form during the early
period Of its activity. Exposure to bad COM
pany then makes him loose liver all his
days; chastity kept at first makes the same
easier later on In all pedagogy the great
thing is to strike the iron while hot and to
seize the wave of the pupils interest in each
successive subject before its ebb has come,
SO that knowledge may be got and habit of
skill acquired-a Roadway of interest in short
secured, on which afterward the individual
may float. There is happy moment for
fixing skill in drawing, for making boys col
lectors in natural history, and presently dis
sectors and botanists; then for initiating them
into the harmonies of mechanics and the
wonders of physical and chemical law and
So OIL. :" LII eetCn OF us a SaturatlOn
point is soon reached in all these things; the
impetus of our purely intellectual zeal ex-
pires, and, unless the topic be one associated
with some urgent personal need that keeps
our wits constantly whetted about it, we set
tie into an equilibrium, and live on what we
learned when our interest was fresh and in
stinctive without adding to the store.
1t is for this reason that outside of their
own business, the ideas gained by men before
they are 25 are practically the only ideas they
have in their lives. They cannot get any
thing new. Disinterested curiosity is past,
the mental grooves and channels set, the
power Of assimilation gone. If by chance we
ever do learn anything about some entirely
new topic we are afflicted by strange sense
of insecurity, and we fear to advance reso-
lutte opinion. But with things learned in the
plastic days of instructive curiosity we never
lose our sense of being at home
The writer here makes point that the first
duty of teachers is to detect the moment of
the instructive readiness for the subject, and
impress upon pupils that whatever physics
and political economy and philosophy they
are at the present acquiring are the physics
end political economy and philosophy that
will have to serve them to the end.-Chicago
Times